Technical Field
The present invention relates to devices for enhancing the flavor of alcohol containing drinks through accelerated aging and infusion.
Related Background Art
Alcohol containing drinks such as whisky, bourbon, rum, wine, beer and others are all well known to have improved flavor through aging. The process is applied both to fermented, undistilled, products such as typical beers and wines, and to distilled products such as whisky, bourbon, rum, etc. All of the products are made by fermentation of a sugar or other carbohydrate containing material that can be digested through use of a yeast to produce alcohol. In some cases, the fermented product is then immediately ready for consumption, but can be improved through aging. In other cases, the raw fermentation product is distilled to increase the alcohol content and the distillate is then aged. The process typically takes place in pre-treated oak barrels and can take anywhere from weeks to years. Both distilled and non-distilled products are starting points for the aging process. For the purposes of this patent application both distilled and non-distilled product prior to aging are called raw product and after the aging process are referred to as aged product.
A significant portion of the cost and risk in making such alcohol drinks is in the aging process. The aging process lengthens the production cycle to years and can severely limit production capacity. The long aging process also makes it nearly impossible to provide experiments with new aging processes including materials as the experiments may take years to get results. Additionally, the long aging process interjects uncertainty into the business as the investment in making a product today may not pay off for years.
There have been numerous studies on the chemical and physical changes that occur during the aging process and attempts to accelerate the process. It is known that material is both removed and added to the raw product. Additionally, it is known that there are chemical changes beyond simple addition and subtraction of chemical moieties. Despite the amount of study, there is still no known process that will accelerate the aging process and produce and aged product that tastes the same as products aged traditionally over periods of years. There is still a need to control the known and as yet discovered aging parameters in such a way as to accelerate aging to produce an equivalent product. The invention however addresses not only accelerating the process to produce the traditionally aged/flavored alcoholic drinks but also to provide a means to investigate and develop new flavors through controlled aging processes that can use new materials and control the process.
The aging process is almost universally done through contact with a wood product, typically Oak in the form of Oaken barrels. Although it is known that there is “aging”, when the raw product is in contact with a variety of woods including different varieties of oak as well as different species of wood materials, the barrels used in for currently known aging are made from materials selected on the basis of both the flavor enhancement achieved as well as the more esoteric requirement that the barrels not leak. Not all woods varieties can be made into leak-free barrels even though they may enhance the flavor of a raw product. Hemicellulose, tannin, lactone, and lignin, are four compounds in wood containing subtle and desirable chemicals necessary to age distillate. Traditional barrel aging extracts these in about 3 to 16 years. These barrels besides being slow to release their attribute burden are limited in the range of aromatics, flavors, and colors that are released and in the taste, smell, color and mouthfeel that results. Traditional aging uses 3 species of oak, America white oak (Quercus alba), English oak (Quercus petraea), and European (Quercus robur). The other 600 or so oaks aren't used because they leak so much that at the end of the traditional aging process no distillate is left in the barrel. But this doesn't mean their flavor attributes are lacking. For example, the US has about 80 species of pretty big oak of which about 97% aren't used in ageing. Mexico has 127 species of really small oak of which none is used.
In some cases, the Barrels are toasted prior to use in aging and in other cases the interior of the barrels are charred prior to use in aging. In some cases, the barrels are used just once and in other cases the barrels are used a second or even more times. There are cases where barrels used for aging of one type of product, Wine for example, are then used subsequently for aging a distilled spirit. The interactions in the aging process are not just between the wooden barrel and the raw product. In some cases, the wood for making the barrels is first aged and it is known that there is fungal growth in the wood during this aging process. It is also known that the aging process includes some loss of the raw product. The aging process is usually not in a controlled environment. There is some speculation that a partial reason for the long term of the aging process is that the raw product in the barrel as it ages must go through several seasonal variations of temperature and humidity. There has also been some limited success using other means to accelerate the aging process. Using smaller barrels or otherwise increasing the surface area of the wood in contact with the raw product has had limited success in accelerating the aging process. Others have used ultrasonic in the form of applying ultrasonic energy to the barrel and the contents during aging.
The barrels although built to minimize losses are not hermetically sealed. Some of the chemical changes during the aging process indicate interaction with oxygen from the air.
The aging process is complex. There are multiple factors both physical, chemical and biological that are involved in the aging process. Since there are so many parameters consistency is difficult. Trying to study, let alone accelerate such a process is a daunting task. Heretofore there has been no system to control the multitude of known variables to study let alone to accelerate the aging process. A system is needed that provides a measure of control over all of the known and perhaps yet to be discovered parameters involved in the accelerated aging of raw alcohol drink products. There is a need for a system that provides accelerated aging of raw alcohol drink products that is fast, repeatable and can be varied to prepare new aging recipes where the variations do not take years to see a result. There is a need for an aging process that enables control over the known variables of temperature, temperature cycling, oxygen, loss to evaporation and other as yet to be discovered process parameters.